


Thus the Quiet-Coloured Eve

by misbegotten



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8243494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: "Order?" asks the lad behind the counter. He's too tall, too pale, and there's a glimmer of too-intelligent coolness in his bespectacled glance. A bit toff to be on the serving end of a pot. He looks like the type, Robbie thinks, who ought to be drinking tea from bone china and eating cucumber sandwiches. The coffee-stained apron testifies to the fact that he gets his hands dirty, though, and his tone is warm if the look is not.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dine/gifts).



> This is not dine's birthday present. But it is as close to her actual birthday as she's going to get a story. Besides, it's mostly her fault. All errors are, of course, my own.
> 
> Title from Robert Browning's "Love Among the Ruins." Quaint, but still apt.

Coffee. Copper's lifeline, sleeper's bane. There's a new shop on the way to the "office." Tempting smells of caffeinated beverages and baked goods lure Robbie in. The dead body isn't going anywhere. The case is cold at the moment. As is Robbie.

The place is called Nectar, which brings to mind honey or wine rather than coffee and tea. Robbie can't resist the homey beckoning of the entrance, though, nor the enticing wafts of freshly brewed drink steaming from noisy nozzles and warming carafes. No thermoses of slowly cooling coffee here, just a few pots of jam laid out for scones and the like, and sweeteners for those who cannot do without sugar in their drink.

"Order?" asks the lad behind the counter. He's too tall, too pale, and there's a glimmer of too-intelligent coolness in his bespectacled glance. A bit toff to be on the serving end of a pot. He looks like the type, Robbie thinks, who ought to be drinking tea from bone china and eating cucumber sandwiches. The coffee-stained apron testifies to the fact that he gets his hands dirty, though, and his tone is warm if the look is not. 

"Coffee. Large." Robbie gives him a bit of a smile. "Hot."

The look grows a bit softer. "Always," comes the reply, in a mock affronted tone. "Blend of the day? Latte? Mocha? Espresso? Double? Triple?"

Robbie holds up a hand in surrender. "Just coffee, with milk. No need for the dramatics."

"Coffee is dramatic without enhancements," the lad says. "Are you sure you wouldn't like an espresso? You look as though you could use one… Detective?"

Robbie's gaze sharpens. "DI Robert Lewis," he admits. "How'd ya know?"

The young man shrugs. "We're not far from the nick. Get quite a few of you lot. And you have that look about you." He's pouring coffee into a takeaway cup that displays the shop's name in artistic font, adding a spot of milk.

"The look?" Robbie persists.

A top on the cup, and Robbie's drink is ready. He takes a sip. Dear heaven, it _is_ nectar. Caffeinated drink of the gods. The lad beams at Robbie's expression, and the look is good on him. Wry and pleased at the same time. Confident, too. He knows it's good coffee, and takes pleasure in it.

"You look like the type to take in the little things, Detective Inspector Lewis."

Aye, maybe Robbie is. He's not a bad copper when he puts his mind to it. "You can call me Robbie."

A hand reaches across the counter, not to take the pound notes that Robbie has pulled out, but offered in a gesture of goodwill. "James Hathaway. Barista. Owner."

"Jim?" Robbie asks, shaking the hand. It's a warm clasp, though not as warm as the coffee, which has already dispelled the chill that sent him into the shop in the first place.

"Definitely not," James retorts, pulling a face. 

Robbie chuckles. "Pleased to meet you, James."

James takes his money, gives him the change. "Would you like a frequent customer card?"

"Definitely," he says. As if he'd let this lifeline go now that he's discovered it.

James looks pleased again.

*

Robbie knows little about coffee other than the fact that he drinks too much of it (according to his doctor), the kind he makes at home is crap (according to anyone who visits), and the brew at Nectar is so addictive that he suspects the owner of possession of illicit substances (according to the craving he can't seem to shake). His sergeant, Elle Langford, offers to make the coffee run -- they've both agreed they can't face another round from the swill in the break room -- but Robbie needs to stretch his legs.

Nectar is open all hours, it seems, for it's always there when he needs it. As is James, perpetually present even if not at the counter. A series of students staff the cash register and dispense brews when James is not doing the work himself, and Robbie has gotten to know many of their names. But his gaze is always drawn to James, who this time is busying himself grinding beans. 

"Robbie," James says over the roar of the grinding machine. "Try the special blend."

Robbie bows to the inevitable; James is never wrong in his recommendations, he's found. He orders two coffees to go, and inhales the bitter, raw scent of freshly-ground roast with pleasure. 

James comes over as Robbie's paying, wiping his hands on the apron. "Long night?" James asks sympathetically.

"The longest," Robbie replies, thinking of the body of a young girl they'd found in a kip in the wee hours, and the little progress they've made since then.

James tuts and holds up a finger to stop Robbie's departure. He disappears into the back, and returns with a brown bag already wilting from something warm and delectable inside. 

"Croissant," James says succinctly. "Chocolate for Elly."

Robbie is tempted to nick the chocolate, but his waistline would protest. As would his sergeant, if she found out. "Thanks," he says, fumbling for more coin, but James shakes his head.

"On the house."

Robbie smiles. "Ta." There's still a long night ahead. But it doesn't seem quite so hopeless, at least not at the moment. Perhaps, he muses, they should call in the stepfather for questioning. Something not quite right there.

"Go," James urges. "You've obviously got the scent."

Robbie looks surprised, and meets James' amused glance. "It's your 'clue' face. You might as well start yelling 'Eureka'!"

"I'm not in the bath," Robbie laughs. Actually laughs. It feels good, and he notices some of the tension in his body releases.

James shoos him out, and later Elly brushes crumbs off the side of Robbie's mouth as they discuss the case.

The stepfather did it, as it turns out.

*

"You've got to try the coffee of the day," Robbie instructs Laura. The good doctor is humoring him. She prefers tea most of the time, Robbie knows, but Robbie has the enthusiasm of a new convert when it comes to Nectar, though he's been going for weeks now.

"A mocha?" Laura bargains. "Coffee au chocolate?"

"Alright," Robbie acquiesces, and lets her find a perch at one of the small tables that dot the place as he orders. James is behind the counter, but he looks distracted. No, Robbie revises. He looks downright forbidding. "Everything okay, lad?"

James is already making Robbie's coffee. "What else can I get you?" he asks, ignoring the inquiry. Robbie shrugs mentally -- everyone is entitled to an off-day and he doesn't want to pester his favorite barista -- and orders Laura's mocha. James adds whipped cream and chocolate shavings, but offers no smile. "Would your girlfriend like a croissant? Scone?"

"Oh, one of those croissants would be just the thing," Robbie answers. He pulls out his frequent customer card along with pound notes and adds, absently, as he shuffles them, "But she's not me girlfriend."

"No?" James asks. He puts the croissant on a plate and deposits it gently before Robbie.

Robbie is counting out change, but can't help thinking about the notion of Laura as his girlfriend. Sure, he's been wanting for company -- physical company, his body reminds him -- for ages, and no doubt Laura would be good for a laugh and possibly even a pity tumble. But they're too different to make it work as a couple, he thinks. And her sights are set elsewhere, besides. What's his name? Marco? Franco? 

"Thanks," he says once James has punched his card and handed it back. For a moment, their fingers touch over cardboard. It's a little too long to be a coincidence. It startles Robbie, thinking as he has been of more carnal than usual thoughts. 

He misses touch.

"Thanks," he repeats, a bit daftly. James just smiles.

"Need help?" he asks, despite the queue forming behind Robbie. Robbie just shakes his head.

"I can manage," he says, and does get a fumbling hold on two cups plus the plate. "Thanks," he says yet again.

He misses touch, he thinks as Laura chatters. She enjoys the mocha and the croissant. And yet when she brushes her lips across Robbie's cheek affectionately in thanks, Robbie realises there's no spark. Not like when his fingers touched James'.

It makes him feel a little hollow inside. Hollow and strange.

*

He hasn't been to Nectar in too long. But Elly has declared that she won't make the coffee run, and there's nothing for it but to man up. He arrives in the wee hours, sure that one of James' student foundlings will be supervising, but there is James in the otherwise empty shop. Sitting in the corner, strumming an acoustic guitar.

"Didn't know you played," Robbie observes quietly, almost unwilling to stop the gentle melody filling the room. But caffeine-addiction and an impatient sergeant will not let him pause too long, even given the serenity of a plucked tune, warmth, and enticing fragrance. 

James looks up, and a tentative smile crosses his face. "Hullo, stranger." He unfolds himself from the stool upon which he has been perched and heads to the counter. "Usual?"

"Usuals, and Elly sends her regrets. Actually she sends her love but not regrets, because she refused to come out into the rain."

James chuckles, and the sound knots Robbie's stomach in an uncomfortable way. It's a nice laugh. It just makes his stomach do a tumble.

I'm sorry," he starts, trying to form in words the tumult of thoughts in his head. "Sorry I haven't been by."

James pauses in busying himself with cups, then jerks his chin towards a chair. "Have a seat. I need to brew a new pot."

Apology accepted, maybe. Robbie sits as told. There's an origami crane on the table, the work of one of the art students. He plays with it until James is finished loading the coffee pot and the machine starts gurgling, and then James slides into the chair across from him. Their knees bump.

"Your guitar?" Robbie asks, feeling inexplicably nervous.

James nods. "Old thing," he says fondly. "I had my eye on a Gibson, once. Cost a packet, though." He shrugs. "My capital is tied up in here."

James is wearing his usual specs, and Robbie tries to picture him without. "Do you ever wear contacts?" he asks.

James laughs. "Another packet! Apparently I have oddly-shaped eyes. Need to order contacts if I want them. I opted not."

"Special," Robbie says without thinking. When James looks at him quizzically, Robbie expands. "Some people have special eyes."

"That's me sorted, then," James says evenly. "I'm special."

"That you are," Robbie agrees, definitely thoughtful now.

The machine is finishing its brew loudly, and James is regarding him steadily. "You think so?" he asks, finally. "Then why haven't you been round?"

He's a daft old man, Robbie thinks suddenly. With blinkers on, apparently. He's _flirting_ with James. "Been busy," he says lamely.

"Yes," James agrees. "I follow your cases in the paper." The machine has stopped, but James makes no move to fetch drinks. "Do you ever take time off?"

"Death waits for no man." Robbie shrugs.

_Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight_  
_Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,_  
_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

James is quoting poetry at him. Dylan Thomas, doomed Welshman. 

James is quoting poetry, and quite possibly flirting with Robbie. Flirting _back_.

"You must do something for fun," James insists lightly.

Robbie shrugs again. "Watch telly. Chase murderers."

"You should try the Ashmolean," James suggests. "Lovely pieces there. Good for quiet contemplation." There's a long pause. "I'd be happy to show you."

Robbie considers the young man before him. "James, are you chatting me up?"

James blinks. There's no guile in his eyes. "And if I was?"

Robbie sighs. "I'm old enough to be your father," he protests. Never mind the fact that he's never been on a date with a bloke before. Never considered it, in any situation. Except this one.

"You may be old fashioned," James corrects him. "But you're not old."

Robbie laughs.

"Show me the Ashmolean," he says, his stomach doing knots and twists again. "Saturday? I assume Nectar can do without you for an hour?"

"Or two," James agrees. 

*

The Ashmolean leads to the Bodleian, and Christ Church, the Sheldonian, and the Botanic Garden. Weeks of trotting about Oxford, playing tourist with James in a city Robbie has known most of his adult life. They always end back at Nectar, though.

Robbie twists his lips, trying not to wince at James' latest creation. A triple espresso is not the way to Robbie's heart, try as James might.

And he's been trying, Robbie would be a fool not to admit. And perhaps Robbie is trying too, even if every glimpse of the pair of them in a shop window makes him think he's sixes and sevens. Tall, lanky, young man paired with a grumpy, older one. Jeans and slightly too tight t-shirts versus pullovers and trousers. Angel versus… well, not an angel, if his dreams have had anything to say about it.

He's been dreaming about James. About the way their hands meet when they're walking, the way James bumps his shoulder to get his attention, or lets his fingers linger on Robbie's knee as they drive hither and yon. The way, now, at the table at Nectar, James' breath is on Robbie's face as he leans down to whisk away the offending espresso and substitute a plain coffee. With milk.

James pecks him on the cheek. Robbie surprises himself by turning into it. Turning it into a proper kiss.

It's brief. It's unnoticeable, probably, to the usuals at Nectar. But Robbie feels aflame. Hotter than the oven that produces delectable baked goods, more searing than the pipes that steam milk for James' exotic liquid concoctions.

Robbie might as well be wearing a sign. I'm an idiot in love.

*

There's been case after case with no end in sight, when Robbie's world comes to a shuddering stop. Simon Monkford stops his world.

He should feel closure, finding Val's killer. He feels everything, but nothing. It's a frustrating paradox.

He's lingering behind Nectar, in the alley. Craving a cigarette, which is ridiculous because he does not smoke. But it's smoke, or beat his fists bloody against the brick wall, or drink until he dies. He opts for a cancer stick. Coughs, but inhales.

James is at his side. He plucks the cigarette from Robbie's hand, takes a long, desperate puff, then flicks the butt down and grinds it with his heel. "I used to smoke, you know," he says, conversationally. "How many quid I wasted." James puts a hand on the outer wall of Nectar. "Needed it all for this, though. So I stopped."

Robbie coughs again, his eyes watering. From the smoke.

James folds him into his arms. Oh god, Robbie thinks, not like this. He shouldn't feel like dying the first time he's in James' arms.

His eyes water, his heart breaks, and he takes the offered solace.

*

Three thousand quid. He's found a Gibson, _the_ Gibson he'd known as soon as he saw it, that belongs in James' hands. Those hands, which have served him countless cups of coffee. Which have held him tight as he sobbed. Which have played lightly on his forearm, rested on his knee, settled at the small of his back, but never pushed. Never gone too far. Never further than Robbie has been able to go.

Three thousand quid; a bloody fortune.

He doesn't have anyone else to spend it on. He used to buy things for Val, many little things to make up for not being there for her on the nights when the kids were mewling sick, when he was gone again on a case, or any of the other slights that she had shouldered without complaint. Lyn is grown and gone. His son… well, there's no use throwing money down that hole. So he's got a tidy nest egg saved for a lonely retirement, and here he is wasting a fortune on a guitar for a man he's kissed once in a coffee shop.

Robbie can't just leave it in the doorway of Nectar. It'll be nicked before he turns his back. There's nothing for it but to go in.

He opts to go in the back, though. James always leaves the back unlocked. Fire hazard, if not. And left unlocked for Robbie.

The kids are manning the counter and register, so it's just James in the back. He's turning off the oven, obviously just finished taking out a sheet of crumbling, fragrant scones. He transfers them easily to waxed paper to finish cooling, and Robbie stands there like an idiot with a bloody great guitar case behind him as if it might turn invisible if he wishes hard enough.

James looks up. A smile dawns on his face, wonderment and delight. "For me?" he asks. Robbie nods dumbly and shifts, placing the case between them. James fumbles with the latches, his hands shaking a bit, and when he opens it there's a sudden, startled exclamation.

"I--" He's floored. So's Robbie, in a moment. James nearly tackles him, and they wind up against the far wall, sliding downward, finally to a sitting position. And then James' lips are on his, desperate, longing, thankful.

"Christ," Robbie manages, as James' hands start to wander. They're cupping his face, trailing down his arms, splayed across his chest, making their way to his hips, and damned if Robbie's body isn't responding accordingly. There's a fiery path everywhere James is touching him, and his groin… well, there's a furnace there, which ought to embarrass him but all he can think of is the look on James' face when he saw the guitar. Pure, unadulterated lust.

And it's in his eyes when he meets Robbie's, too.

Fuck me, Robbie thinks. And then, _fuck me_. Or _someone_ , at any rate.

"Not here," he manages to say. "Anyone can walk in." It's a wonder one of the students hasn't already stumbled across them. "Come back to mine, when you close?"

"I'll close now," James breathes against his mouth. "Let the kids clean up. Emergency on my part."

Aye, things are getting a bit emergent. Oh, Robbie thinks. Puns. The refuge of the damned, James has been known to say.

"Meet me at my place in an hour," he orders. "And bring the guitar. You can play for me."

James' smile is brighter than the sun. "As long as I can play _with_ you too."

"Aye, lad." Robbie kisses him. "That you can."

*

There's an Italian-style caffettierra (Robbie's not entirely sure how to spell the bloody thing, much less use it) permanently ensconced in the kitchen now. And he's going to put on weight if James doesn't stop insisting on feeding him regular meals. He'd rather eat croissant at Nectar, but that's their second home now. James has taken on a partner for the business.

And in more ways than that. His denims are in Robbie's dresser. Tees in the wash, mixed with Robbie's work shirts. Sheet music all over the place, and more books than Robbie can possibly envision have found their way into the nooks and crannies of Robbie's. Poetry, theology, fiction, non-fiction. Cookbooks, books on the history of tea and coffee, exhaustively researched studies of the best grinds and finest beans.

It's a mess. It's home. And once Robbie gives up on using the Italian coffee pot before James wakes, he settles for watching James sleep in their bed. The sheets are kicked down around James' feet, and his entire backside is on glorious display. There are dull marks at his hip where Robbie has grasped too hard, too beautifully long as James came apart in his arms. Neither of them had noticed at the time. Ah well. James is a bit of a mess.

And that's home too.

**Author's Note:**

> My dear dine said, "coffee shop AUs can be either fantastic or the bane of fandom." I hope (with all modesty) this qualifies as the former rather than the latter. Best wishes on your best day. <3
> 
> Edited to add: And now there's a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYy9t0iRpFg0ioatrGRInNZbOo2dfyH5d) for the story. Because I'm sappy for these two. ;)


End file.
